Challenges

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Following his extraordinary debut novel, Light of Day ("An exhilarating emotional roller-coaster ride" --Washington Post), author Jamie Saul now explores the intricate relationships between friends and siblings, husbands and wives.

The First Warm Evening of the Year is a breathtakingly beautiful, wonderfully resonant, and gorgeously evocative story that demonstrates how true love can be discovered in the most unexpected places. Finely wrought, character-driven literary fiction that packs an emotional wallop, Saul's The First Warm Evening of the Year is for anyone who has ever been powerfully affected by a novel by Chris Bohjalian, Joyce Maynard, or Scott Spencer...and for everyone who adores getting lost in a great story.

Review: What can I say about this book, except maybe, WOW!

I usually have a hard time with romantic stories written by men, yet this one was different, mostly because for me I felt it dealt with the relationships between Geoffrey and Laura , Geoffrey and Rita, Geoffrey and Marian, as well as the others involved in their lives.

I found the story hard to put down, because I wanted to learn about Laura, his friend who died of lung cancer leaving him executor of her estate, Simon, her brother who is more then a little messed up, and Marian, the friend of Laura's that Geoffrey is finding himself falling for.

The writing was superb and lyrical and while I didn't identify with the characters much, I did come to care about them. I wanted to know why they behaved the way they did in their past relationships and why they were drawn to each other.

The characters that really pulled me in weren't necessarily the main characters. I loved the two brothers, Geoffrey's brother Alex, a psychiatrist that's gay, and Laura's brother Simon. I think the reason they appealed to me so much was because they were so unexpected and different and when it comes to Simon, it was hard not to feel sorry for him.

Marian was a difficult character to warm up to. She had a lot of guilt stemming from the death of her husband Buddy. When he passed away 10 years earlier, their relationship wasn't totally a happy one.

The other thing that I have to mention is how the characters felt so much older than they were. These were people in their 40s. Not old by any means, and yet Geoffrey and Marian felt at least 20 years older than they actually were.

I really enjoyed reading about how Geoffrey and Marian found their way to each other. It definitely wasn't your typical love story.